My name is Carla Smith. I am the person you usually talk to first when you call the Wichita Adult Literacy Council.

I worked with WALC for three years with a wonderful retraining program for seniors called Experience Works. A position as Administrative Assistant opened, and I officially joined WALC as staff a year ago.

As I register tutors and students every day, I often think about when we were young we spent our time dreaming about how quickly we could get out of school. As our lives changed, we realized that maybe, we should have paid better attention and stayed a little longer.

But, in fact, one in six young adults actually do drop out. Many people found that good job in the oil patch that paid so well seemed worth leaving school for only to find that could not be counted on for security.

We discover our Christmas job didn’t pan out because it really was “just seasonal.” There was a fast food job but it didn’t offer hours that were conducive to raising a family and the pay couldn’t support a family.

It’s not all poor planning. Life happened. Relationships dissolved. Children were born. Family demands changed. And then we look back and that education we turned our backs on was really the only thing we could count on.

Many people function on a level that can get them through the day to day of a job; but, promotions and raises do not go to the ones who barely get by. Forty-three % of these folks will live in poverty and 70% of welfare recipients have low literacy levels.

Sixty percent of inmates cannot read or write. Lack of options force desperate reactions. And people who work outside the system or participate in criminal activity don’t pay taxes so the infrastructure suffers as well.

Twenty-three percent of Wichita County adults aren’t literate regardless of the native language. Many of our clients are literate in their first language; but if they are not, becoming proficient in a second language is potentially impossible.

Parents who do not read will likely put education as a low priority and so the spiral feeds on itself. Parents who drop out are more likely to have children who drop out. The children of these parents are more likely to get poor grades; display behavioral problems; have high absentee rates; repeat school years; have poor self-esteem which of course leads to poor everything else.

Health care costs are linked to low literacy rates too. Nearly half of American adults have difficulty understanding and using health information. This translates to $232 billion (that is billion with a B) a year linked to health neglect.

I am certain that what I have told you is not a big revelation – you know these things. Most of it is common sense, but when all of this information is a part of a concise report it may be more shocking than it is as one random thought at a time. We are well aware that we cannot alleviate the problem of non-literate adults; but by committing to one student at a time, every success for us is a success for the community.

Our mission states, “The Wichita Adult Literacy Council empowers people to improve their individual literacy skills and to promote community awareness of literacy issues.” We follow our mission by helping our clients learn to read, get a GED, learn English, acquire a driver’s license, improve math skills, find jobs, gain citizenship, improve college entrance test scores, pass the ASVAB for the military, or just read to better themselves and their families lives. Our tutors work one on one with students using a structured system that begins at a zero literacy rate for the lowest level or work on college level curriculum for our highest levels. Our tutors are ALL volunteers. We are up to any challenge. We receive no federal or state funding. We are funded by grants, donations, and fundraisers. We do not charge our students for our services. We believe we are making a huge difference in the community. We are here to help, and we need your help to keep our mission alive.